The AODA Guidelines will take effect on January 1st 2021. Under the act all public sector websites will have to comply with the AODA rules. For more details please visit the general info page at Web Accessibility Guidelines

If you are maintaining your web content with pure HTML your options are

• to migrate your content to our departmental CMS (based on wagtail.io) which puts the responsibility on PCS to comply with accessibility rules.
• to take steps and make your pages compatible with the accessibility rules.

Migrate Your Content to the Physics CMS

PCS is offering the option to help you migrate your content to our web framework which will maintain the accessibility rules at a central level. Here are some examples of such member or project pages:

• https://curtin.physics.utoronto.ca
• https://jones-group.physics.utoronto.ca
• https://mopitt.physics.utoronto.ca
• https://rauscher-group.physics.utoronto.ca
• https://savard.physics.utoronto.ca

PCS will offer to

• create a site for your content
• do a short presentation of the content options,
• assist with any problems you may encounter moving the content to the cms

Please note that
given time constraints PCS may not be able to move all your pages to the new CMS.
the option to move your site to the CMS is free of charge for now.

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If you would like to start with the migration of your content to the Physics CMS, please contact Julian Comanean at icom@physics.utoronto.ca to start the process.

Make Your Static Web Pages Accessible

If you decide to maintain your web pages in pure HTML, here are some suggestions which will take the least effort on your side and create the highest impact on accessibility. Your site has to comply with WCAG2.0 Level AA rules. There are plugins available for mainstream browsers which can test your web pages for compliance.

So, in my opinion, your page will be considerably enhanced if you look at the following features:

• Add an accessibility disclosure on your website or link to the Physics Accessibility disclosure page.
  This way someone who has questions about accessibility will be able to quickly get in contact with us.
• Make sure the colour contrast on your pages is WCAG2.0 AA compliant.
  Your text and background should be highly readable (see testing tools below - colour contrast)
• Make sure that the HTML structure is WCAG2.0 AA compliant.
  The html in your page should be compliant. For ex. <h2> should come after <h1>. (see testing tools below - HTML structure)
• Ensure images have "alt" descriptions.
• When uploading images and documents (doc, pdf), make sure you assign descriptive titles to them.
  "img349978.jpg" or "labDoc_no_52_20201130.pdf" are not considered valid titles. Instead consider adding titles like "User John Doe working on computer" or "Representation of an important experiment" to your docs and images.

The following webinar is accessible to UofT Members with a valid UtorID only. It provides a 55 min. introduction to web accessibility by Ben Poynton and Chris Sabatinos at the University of Toronto Centre for Research & Innovation Support.

Testing Tools